I like this idea. I've noticed that on The List, users tend to leave comments about their article, right after posting it.

Not only does it pad out the page, which prevents users from digesting many headlines at once, but it gives the submitter a "sticky" comment at the top of their submission page for them to elaborate on their post. If you're aiming for high quality content and discussion, it might be worthwhile to consider it.

Also, thanks for making your alternative open source and documenting your sorting algorithm!

Wow thanks for pointing this out (about the algorithm). That's perfect for people like me who hobby around in algorithms! Big thanks for considering your users!

Love this idea....I actually don't like that HN makes me choose to either click through directly or read comments. Wish it (or TheList) would just do blurbs!

You can use tldr.io plugin to get some blurbs before deciding if the link is worth clicking. It works great on HN. However there isn't many of them yet.